Overview:
To transform a range of urban green spaces into vibrant, flower-rich meadows with better planting and management regimes that result in biodiversity net gains and reduced maintenance visits.
Project Details:
In collaboration with North Lanarkshire Council, ‘Mega Flora’ is a large-scale, long-term project covering multiple high-profile locations across Motherwell and Strathclyde Country Park. The sites range from large areas of urban amenity grassland to woodland edging, a redundant red ash football pitch, residential areas and school grounds.
The goal of the project is twofold. Firstly, to benefit the community by creating diverse and healthy green spaces for local people to enjoy while supporting wildlife, reducing biodiversity loss and helping to combat the climate emergency. Secondly, the project is tasked with delivering more efficient management regimes for urban green spaces by reducing grass-cutting and the frequency of machinery use. This will ultimately save time and cost for North Lanarkshire Council while reducing carbon emissions.
To date, our Landscape Team have sown 53 million perennial seeds to create 70,000 square metres of vibrant, flower-rich meadow across 130 plots. They’ve also planted over 900 tall herb plants, which consisted of over 100 different species. Local schools and volunteer groups have also benefitted from opportunities to help with the planting.
The bespoke Pictorial Meadows seed mixes specifically designed for these urban green spaces were sown by our Landscape Team in autumn 2023 and spring 2024.
Mega Flora is one of eleven projects supported by Greenspace Scotland with funding from the 2023 Scottish Government/UK Government Levelling Up Parks Programme to restore nature in urban settings and country parks.
‘The public response has been fantastic so far, with the meadows drawing attention towards the vast increase in plant diversity across the landscape and the changes in maintenance (the area was previously mown amenity grass which required about sixteen cuts a year). I overheard a member of the public say to a park ranger that the meadows “looked like a painting”, to which the ranger replied, “Yes, we painted them yesterday. Watch out – the paint is still wet.”’ – Owen Hayman, Landscape Manager at Pictorial Meadows
